We then rowed to the ducal palace.  The council chamber (I thought of Othello as I entered it) is now converted into a library.  The walls are decorated with the history of Pope Alexander the Third, and Frederic Barbarossa, painted by the Tintoretti, father and son, Paul Veronese and Palma.  Above them, in compartments, hang the portraits of the Doges; among which Marino Faliero is not; but his name only, inscribed on a kind of black pall.  The Ganymede is a most exquisite little group, attributed to the age of Praxiteles; and not without reason even to the hand of that sculptor.

To-day we visited several churches—­rich, on the outside, with all the luxury of architecture,—­withinside, gorgeous with painting, sculpture, and many-coloured marbles.  The prodigality with which the most splendid and costly materials are lavished here is perfectly amazing:  pillars of lapis-lazuli, columns of Egyptian porphyry, and pavements of mosaic, altars of alabaster ascended by steps incrusted with agate and jasper:—­but to particularize would be in vain.  I will only mention three or four which I wish to recollect:  the Church of the Madonna della Salute, so called because erected to the Virgin in gratitude for the deliverance of the city from a pestilence, which she miraculously drove into the Adriatic.  It is remarkable for its splendid pictures, most of them by Luca Giordano; and the superb high altar.  I think it was the Church of the Gesuata which astonished us most.  The whole of the inside walls and columns are encrusted with Carrara marble inlaid with verd-antique, in a kind of damask pattern; over the pulpit it fell like drapery, so easy, so graceful, so exquisitely imitated, that I was obliged to touch it to assure myself of the material.  Then by way of contrast followed the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore,—­one of Palladio’s masterpieces.  After the dazzling and gorgeous buildings we had left, its beautiful simplicity and correct taste struck me at first with an impression of poverty and coldness.  At the Church of St. John and St. Paul is the famous martyrdom, or rather assassination, of St. Peter Martyr, by Titian, one of the most magical pictures in the world.  Its tragic horror is redeemed by its sublimity.  Here too is a most admirable series of bas-reliefs in white marble, representing the history of our Saviour, the work of a modern sculptor.  Here too the Doges are buried; and close to the Church is the equestrian statue of one of the Falieri family:  near which Marino Faliero met the conspirators.

At the Frati is the grave of Titian:  a small square slab covers him, with this inscription:—­

    “Qui giace il gran Tiziano Vecelli. 
    Emulator dei Zeusi e degli Apelli.”

there is no monument:—­and there needs none.

It was, I think, in the Church of St. John and St. Paul, that I saw a singular and beautiful altar of black touch-stone, used when mass is said for the soul of an executed criminal.